


Unknown Paths

by Tarlan



Category: Primeval: New World
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 20:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2038761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If he didn't take this chance then he could die millions of years away from home... and from Evan Cross.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unknown Paths

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **SmallFandomFest** FEST15

Stepping through the chard layer into another time with just a small pack and the clothes on his back - especially into the Cretaceous period - was a colossal mistake but at the time he'd been running on very little sleep, Nutrient Bars and adrenaline. He'd felt excited and passionate about something for the first time in years, and working with Evan Cross for just those few short hours had fired up his imagination.

The Triceratops had disappeared swiftly, rejoining a small herd in the distance, leaving Howard alone in a world devoid of everything he knew. There were no electronics here. No Internet. No corner stores with supplies of batteries - or processed foods.

A predator's roar sent a shiver racing down his spine and he knew he had to move into the greater safety of the nearby trees or die out here on the empty plain as easy prey. He moved swiftly, suddenly aware of how stupid he had acted. The anomaly had closed behind him - he had timed it to perfection - and now he was trapped until it, or another anomaly, opened. Worse, he had no idea where that would happen, or when.

Survival instincts kicked in when he realized the sun was low on the horizon, and most creatures were crepuscular, hunting in the twilight of dusk and dawn. He clambered up the closest tree and wrapped his arms around himself as the temperature began to drop. It was going to be a long night and he could only hope he lived to see the sun rise on a new day.

By the end of the first month he had worked out a routine that kept him safe for the most part. He still had to factor in the chaotic nature of living things, but he learned when it was safe to approach the stream that ran through the woods and when it was too dangerous. Half-forgotten stories and facts picked up while aimlessly flicking through the channels of his TV became life savers. He used the bladder of a tiny pig-like dinosaur to carry water. He shaped a food bowl out of a piece of wood, using a stone ax crafted from a large piece of flint, a branch, and the strong twine-like vines from a liana. He made a spear too, aware that having a longer reach would put him further away from the lethal hooked claws and jagged teeth of creatures that were reminiscent of velociraptors. Those creatures hunted in packs too so he knew to be especially careful when he heard their barking calls, clambering high into the trees for protection.

He learned to avoid the migratory trail of the herd dinosaurs as the larger predators often lay in wait of a passing meal. He refused to become that meal.

A month became two, and for the first time since her death, he had nothing to occupy his mind but memories of his life, and he was surprised when Evan Cross featured most in his thoughts. 

Evan had seemed appalled, with pity clouding his blue eyes until the math and the excitement of being on the cutting edge of a new discovery pushed everything else aside. 

Hindsight was a _bitch_ , and Howard could see the echo of himself in Evan's eyes now. He saw the lonely, lost man who had taken refuge in science to avoid the pain of his loss, recognizing a kindred spirit in Evan Cross. It shocked him to realize that they had both lost their wives within a month of each other, and he was ashamed that he couldn't recall the name of Evan's wife despite reading everything he could about the man who had seemingly stolen his revolutionary Photonics ideas and cornered the market in just three months, five years earlier.

He'd been consumed by wanting to know how, yet all that had fallen away.

Wormholes - anomalies - connecting different time periods, fracturing the very essence of time and space.

If he hadn't been so manic, so driven to move beyond the chard layer, he would be safely tucked up in his lab working out a way to control the anomalies; to open and close them to any moment in time at will. In his ideal world, Evan would be working right alongside him, sharing the joy of discovery, and in one particularly vivid dream, they had turned to each other in triumph - and all the tension and adrenaline and excitement had contracted into a single desire, leaving them desperate and breathless as they rutted against each other, devouring each other in almost brutal kisses.

He'd awoken from the intense dream with his dirty, torn jeans damp at the crotch and his body still thrumming from a sense memory of hands and lips that was all in his imagination. Since then he thought of Evan often, wondering where he was, what he was doing, what he had seen... and wondering if Evan ever thought about him in turn. If he looked for Howard every time he stepped through an anomaly to another time.

Howard wanted to go home, but surprisingly, the mansion in its spacious grounds, with its tennis court and swimming pool and hi-tech laboratory no longer felt like home. Home was any place discussing harmonics and Photonics, anomalies and space and time and other dimensions with a man who was his intellectual equal. With Evan Cross.

In the large tree where he rested each night, he had taken to placing a notch in the wood to mark the start of each new day so he knew it was day seventy-two when the anomaly detector made a weak blipping sound. Tweaking the device had extended the range to twenty miles and though he could not gain an accurate decay rate from the weak signal, he knew he had to take a chance or risk being stranded in the Cretaceous until he died. The odds were that his death would be violent - at the teeth and claws of a predator.

Although it was only just past dawn, he knew he had to take the risk and start out immediately. He couldn't afford to wait, so he muted the beeping sound and crept down from the tree, covering the ground swiftly with spear in one hand and the detector in the other. When he heard the barks of the velociraptors, he panicked for a moment, frozen in place. Before the fight or flight instinct could kick in, a sharp yelp of pain echoed around the heavily wooded area, accompanied by the snarling savagery of a prey taken down, and Howard closed his eyes in silent thanks. Taking a wide berth around the kill-ground, Howard moved onwards at a faster pace, wanting to put as much distance between him and the pack as possible.

He walked for hours with the signal growing stronger and stronger, finding the sun-baked grassland hard under foot as he walked under a merciless sun. Eventually he had to stop to avoid the worst of the midday heat. The readings were confusing though, with the decay rate fluctuating, and as he sat high in the branches of a single tree, using the sparse canopy for shade, he had time to study the readings more closely. The Epiphany struck him as two small bird-like dinosaurs weaved a pattern in the sky in the distance.

"It's not a single anomaly."

His quick mind separated the data into at least two distinctive anomalies, both with different decay harmonics counting down to closure. He had only a few hours, and he knew it could easily take that long to cross the grasslands, especially if he had to avoid a herd or large predator. Howard decided he had to move now or risk missing this opportunity to find his way home.

Eternally grateful that he had stuffed a baseball cap into the pack before chasing after the original anomaly, he settled it back over his head with a torn piece of shirt hanging down to protect the back of his neck. He pushed onwards, relentlessly placing one foot in front of the other as if on a death march, aware that it might accurately describe this journey. The grasslands gave way to rocky slopes that were treacherous underfoot; the stones shifting beneath his feet as he climbed to the ridge and looked down in the bone dry, death valley below. His feet skidded beneath him as he descended, sending stones shifting in mini-avalanches.

He sobbed when he caught the light glinting off the chard layer, surprised when he saw only one anomaly despite readings that implied that the number of anomalies had grown exponentially.

He paused at the threshold, aware that he had no way of knowing if the other side even had a breathable atmosphere. He could be walking into a time when the whole world was boiling lava and sulfur gases, or into the middle of an ocean, or the center of a vast desert, or an ice age. 

One by one the other hidden anomalies began to close. The harmonics from the one standing before him were fading too, with only a few minutes remaining.

He closed his eyes, caught by indecision but opened them fast as the deep roar of a large predator echoed through the dry valley. If he stayed here he would die for certain because there was no place here for him to hide, leaving him with only one option.

Howard stepped forward and let the chard layer envelope him... and came face-to-face with Evan Cross.

Barely had he time to register Evan's presence than his arm was being gripped in a tight hold and Evan was dragging him at a fast pace towards another anomaly. The anomaly collapsed only seconds after they stepped out into a warm, late summer day in the too familiar woodland just beyond the grounds of Howard's property.

"I'm home!" Howard laughed almost hysterically and gathered Evan up in a hug, burying himself against the other man.

He felt Evan's arms wrap around him in turn, squeezing back just as hard. Slowly he calmed down, simply breathing in the presence of not just another human being, but a man who had featured in numerous dreams since that first one.

Howard stepped back, suddenly uncomfortable, but Evan held on to his biceps, preventing him from drawing away completely. He was shocked when Evan darted in and kissed him hard on the lips before stepping back, wide-eyed and flustered, and equally shocked by his own actions. 

Evan cleared his throat. "I don't know why I..."

"Yeah. That was... unexpected." 

Howard's fingers brushed against his still tingling lips, one ragged nail catching in his unkempt beard and reminding him that he hadn't shaved in months - or washed in days. He probably looked like one of those bums that he used to see sleeping on park benches while he drove past them in his Porsche.

Evan tilted his face, eyes narrowing a fraction as he stared hard at Howard. A small, wry smile curved his lips. "Unexpected, but not unwelcome."

Howard hoped the ragged beard hid the flush of embarrassment that heated his face. Evan stepped closer again, his eyes never breaking with Howard's as he reached up to cup Howard's bearded cheek. He leaned in slowly this time, giving both of them time to end this before it began, but two months thinking about Evan Cross, and the way they had fit together so perfectly in those too few hours - intellectually, physically, emotionally - was all the assurance Howard needed. This time when Evan pulled back, his deep blue eyes were shining.

"I thought about you every day. I thought you were gone forever and that was..." Evan sighed, pulling Howard back into his arms. He hold tightened as he whispered, "There's no guarantee that nothing changed while we were on the other side."

Howard nodded slowly. The Butterfly Effect. A small change in the past having repercussions that affected the present. The world beyond this path winding through these woods was an unknown quantity, perhaps vastly different from the one they had known, or maybe with just a few subtle differences, but they would not know until they started walking towards the present.

What he did know with certainty, was that neither of them had to take that path alone - ever again.

"Two smart guys like us?" he quipped. "I'm sure we can handle it."

END  
.


End file.
